Miss Fortune (26 page)

The front door of Ink You is locked even though a giant sign says
OPEN
. There's a dreadlocked white guy standing inside watching me struggle and struggle to open the door. He screams “PULL! PULL!” angrily at me, refusing to walk over to the door. Based on
his skin tone and body weight, he looks like a guy who's had his fair share of struggling to open things in his life. Doors, drawers, veins. You'd think he'd have a little empathy. Suddenly a guy who looks like he's in ZZ Top runs from across the street, bangs his motorcycle helmet on the glass door, screams, “IT'S FUCKING LOCKED!” and walks away. My hero.

Dreadlocked guy unlocks the door. I make sure to tell him that I'm not with that guy who banged on the door but I do have a ten
A.M.
appointment. He asks me what sort of design I'm thinking of, and I ramble on like a drunk slam poet describing how “truth is truth,” and “letting go so that what is shall be.” I keep waiting for him to stop me, but he never does, so after ten minutes of talking in circles I wear myself out.

I tell him that I have a general idea of what sort of tattoo I want to get but was hoping to do some brainstorming with the artist who had been recommended to me, Virginia.

“She's not here yet,” he says and tells me I can browse through some tattoo albums and see if I find anything in there I like.

Dreadlocked guy, who could also be called “chapped-lipped guy,” grabs a beat-up photo album and tells me to have a seat in the waiting area. “Are you sure this isn't the Cheetos-eating area?” I joke, referring to the large amount of Cheetos crumbs on all the chairs. He answers, “No, it's not.”

The photos in the albums are close-ups of people's red, swollen, and heavily ointmented finished tattoos. It has more of a “medical record of painful skin infections experienced by biker gangs in the seventies” feel than a sales tool for a tattoo parlor.

A young girl in an ill-fitting T-shirt with a baby in her arms appears from the back. The first thing I thought when I saw the baby was “Wow, that's a bigheaded baby,” but now that a debate has started between the mother and dreadlocked baby daddy over
whether the baby looks inbred, I'm offended on behalf of the bigheaded baby. I can think his head gigantic, but those are his
parents.
They should think he looks like them.

Dreadlocked guy screams “FUCK!” and jumps back like he's seen a spider on the baby's face. “Okay, one of his eyes is way fucking bigger than the other one and it's freaking me out,” he says and pounds on the counter with his fist.

The mother tells a story about a dishwasher she worked with who had been a twin “and he was inbred, too,” and neither of the brothers looked anything like what this baby looked like. “Wouldn't you know if your baby was inbred?” she asked.

I smile politely at the little impromptu family meeting that's happening behind the counter and flip through the pages of the photo album like I'm reading a Crate & Barrel to help cover up the “I HAVE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE” panic that has now fully set in.

I can't get myself to just stand up and leave. I don't want them to think their talking shit about their baby has turned me off. If I walk out now, it looks like I'm judging their lifestyle. Like I think eating Flamin' Hot Cheetos for breakfast is so beneath me.

My first tattoo was so much better. It happened on the beach in Tahiti and was a blissful experience from start to finish.

It was designed by a French Polynesian man in Mooréa, Tahiti, whose real name I am sure is something like Ra'iarrii' and means something mystical like “those who live in the sorrow of a whale's dream and smell like mangos,” but he took one look at my sunburned face, Ellen DeGeneres haircut, and wristbands from my all-inclusive resort, and said, “Call me Fred.”

My mother and father had decided that instead of leaving us money after they died, like nice parents do, they wanted to spend their money while they were still with us. Our inheritance would
be the memories we created together of touring vanilla bean factories and learning how to make a coin purse out of a coconut. The day I got my tattoo we were scheduled to have our picture taken kissing a dolphin. I'd bristled at the idea of paying anyone to kiss me, especially a dolphin. While my sisters were scraping their tongues in anticipation, I was doing research to find out where dolphins' ears were so I knew where to whisper, “You don't have to do this.” Thank god I got over my “fat American on vacation exploiting animals” hang-up and ended up going. Otherwise I'd never be able to say how an hour before I got my first tattoo I was kissing a dolphin. Plus, I would have missed out on my sister Joyce's first kiss.

It was that sweet spot in my life where someone whispering “I will love you forever” in my ear didn't make me punch the wall and scream, “LIAR!” I was thirty years old and about to be married. For the first time. I believed in love, and for a brief few years I believed someone could love me. As I walked out of the resort to find a place to get a tattoo, my dad came running after me and handed me fifty bucks. “I said I'd pay for everything on this trip, so let me pay for this.” I swear he had tears in his eyes. Maybe he wished he could go too. Perhaps he was proud of me. Or maybe they'd all discussed switching resorts and not telling me.

The Canadians who ran the moped rental hut told me, “Find Fred.” I did. I found him sauntering down the beach carrying a guitar in one hand and twirling a tiny white flower in the other hand. Finally my life felt like a commercial for tropical body splash. He was naked except for a loincloth that was up his ass. I don't mean he had the entire thing shoved up there, but it was very minimal coverage.

I'd seen a lot of people on the island wearing them but had assumed that they were just Hooter-ing it up for the tourists. Fred
made it look natural. Like it was god's intended uniform. When I first spotted him, I ran up and stuck out my hand like I was running for mayor, but instead of shaking my hand and promising his vote he reached out and stroked my hair. He stroked my arm. He stroked my face. After he got done tenderizing me, he asked me in very halting English, “What do you love?”

Fred's spiritual vibe unlocked the hula-dancing mute in my soul, and I started acting out little scenarios about nature and love. I was trying to tell him that I was getting married soon and that I was a Pisces so I did a lot of grabbing my heart, pointing at the ocean, and drawing smiley faces in the sand. At one point I mimed taking handfuls of sunshine and shoving them in my heart. It looked like I was doing an experimental dance piece about a woman who dies from open heart surgery. But he got it. He nodded, grabbed my hand, and led me to his hut.

After an hour of lying on a pile of pillows looking out over the Pacific Ocean, I had a Tahitian tattoo that looked like the ocean flowing into the sun on the side of my left calf. It flowed so organically with the lines of my lower leg that it looked like the waves and swirls of the tattoo had been there first and my body organically developed around it.

It was the highlight of the trip for me. It was magical and amazing and I've never regretted that tattoo for a moment.

Of course I hadn't been through 9/11,
The Daily Show
, herpes scares, hot babysitters, and two divorces.

So maybe, just maybe, my expectations for my second tattoo were too high.

“Do you have any books of tribal designs?” I ask. Dreadlocked pulls down what looks like a coffee table book, dusts it off, and tells me that Virginia is parking her car and will be here in a minute. The tribal book is more what I'm looking for. On the “Designs of
the Hopi Indians” page I see something that speaks to me. I show Dreadlocked. “How about something like this—just this circle and the three dots and the lines?” I like it. It's got a Zen/Basquiat/tribal feel.

He glances at it, turns his head, and yells toward the back, “Virginia!” We stand in silence for what feels like a solid five minutes waiting for Virginia. He doesn't call her name again. I guess he knows she needs to be screamed for only once. I take the time to imagine cleaning under his fingernails.

Virginia appears from the back. She doesn't look well. She's about thirty, very pale and very thin, with greasy hair kept in place with plastic barrettes shaped like bows. The kind you see on little kids, nineties hipsters, or the wigs of the mentally ill. Her neck and arms are covered in elaborate tattoos. She shuffles her feet when she walks and has her hands stuck in her pockets, which I soon discover is to help keep them from shaking. In a teeny tiny voice she asks me, “So what are we doing today?” I show her the Hopi design. “Okay, circles are really hard. They're the hardest things you could ever get.”

The last thing I wanted to do was to cause her more stress, but it did strike me as fairly shocking that something as common as a circle would be such a big deal. “You've got an Escher painting on your neck. Wouldn't that be way harder?”

“It's actually way easier.”

I offer to wait while she practices on an eggplant. I'm trying to help her out. She keeps glancing toward the back where Dreadlocked has disappeared.

“If you'd rather have that guy do it, I'd be okay with that. Please don't feel you like you have to—” I offer, thinking maybe she wants a way out, but this clearly is not the right thing to say because she starts to panic immediately.

“No! Nonie can do this. Please! I want to try. Can I at least try?” Oh god.

Virginia asks me if I'd like a drink of water. I tell her no but she should go ahead. She turns toward what I assume is the direction of the water, lets out a loud exhale, and turns back around.

“You know why I want to do this? Because it scares the shit out of me. And I'm sick and tired of being scared of everything. I woke up this morning and I was scared of my cereal, so I'm like, what's next? You know?” Before I can answer, “Me leaving!” she gives me a weepy smile and invites me to “come on back!”

As she outlines the design on my wrist, I stare at the top of her head. Study her pale skin and sprinkles of dandruff caught in her hairline.

She tells me how she's a dancer. I ask her how she likes living in Boise. “Well, I love snow but I hate snow.” I try not to look at her dandruff again. You know what? I like her. The fact that I'm not at some slick LA “I'm Johnny Depp's artist” tattoo shop is perfect. A little shaky artist girl in Boise. This is perfect. She looks exactly how I felt so many days these past six months. I'm not walking out on her. She's going to give me the best tattoo of her life. You and me, Virginia. We are making this happen. This tattoo is going to be the beginning of our new lives.

•   •   •

I ask her how she's doing. “I did not sleep well last night.”

Oh, that's it. She's just tired!

“I had this dream where I was in an empty apartment and I looked out the window and I see a bridge and it's covered with people. Like four thousand people walking across it. It was like a big Brooklyn Bridge. Then I look over on the wall in the apartment and there's a button and I just walk over and before I even
think I reach out and I hit the button. And when I do the bridge collapses and I watch all these people falling.”

She takes a moment to finish what must be the circle—I can't get myself to watch—and looks up at me. “And I think—oh my god, I just killed four thousand people.”

She stares off like she's seeing the mass murder happen in front of her, makes one last mark on my wrist, and sits up.

“Okay—there's your tattoo.”

Circles really are hard. The circle is ever so slightly lopsided. That's not the worst part—the worst part is that it's just a horrible tattoo. I've seen jail tats that had more style. It's awful. Really awful. Three blue dots in a triangle shape. Three small stubby lines underneath the lopsided circle. The ink looks like it's already faded. Like I've had the tattoo for years.

I mumble “Thank you” and stumble out of my chair. I need to get out of here as soon as possible so I can get back to my car where no one can hear me scream.

Later that day, Keily comes to my hotel to show me her tattoo, which is perfect and she loves it. I show her mine. “Is that really what you asked for?” she asks.

On the plane ride back home I sign up for OkCupid and by the time I land I've set up a date with a reality show (“we prefer the term unscripted content”) producer, a journalist from the BBC, and a pool-care guy.

My friends are all throwing rules at me. “Don't sleep with anyone until after three dates.” “No guys who don't have jobs.” “No guys without kids.” “No guys with kids.” “You need a guy who . . .” And then all my bossy girlfriends, my birth mother, or Eddie the mailman tells me what I need.

At first, I like all of them. For the first five minutes they all seem way better choices than I've ever had before. I'm not sure why.
After three dates, it's the most depressing parade of sad broken robots in the galaxy.

Four months of dating. I'm in the doctor's office with a fever and a kidney infection. The most promiscuous friend I know—I'll call her Stan—tells me that a kidney infection is “the whore's disease.”
“My doctor said it was stress related,”
I text her from the pharmacy waiting for my prescriptions.
“He's being nice. He feels sorry for you because of your age.”

It's like I'm trying to get love through all the wrong holes. I'm not sure what the right hole would be. The hole in my heart?

The odd thing is that none of the dates mention my tattoo. They don't notice it. Maybe if it had been right above my mouth it would have warranted more comments.

The first person to notice it is a sound guy on a VH1
I Love the '80s 3-D
shoot. He asks me what my affiliation is. I have no idea what he's talking about. “Do you have any idea what the actual meaning of that tattoo is?” Outside the obvious meaning of “never get a tattoo in Boise,” I have no idea what he's talking about.